by Martin Limon
“Seems like we just left,” Ernie said.
“Yeah.”
Itaewon was a different world. A dark world, all the flashing lights shut off, windows shuttered tight, swinging double doors padlocked and barred from the inside. Unlit neon drooped from dirty brick walls like cheap earrings dangling from a prostitute’s ear.
Only law enforcement personnel and emergency vehicles are allowed to operate during the midnight-to-four curfew. A couple of times “white mice”-the white-clad curfew-enforcement police-stopped us and inspected our CID badges. Each time I spoke in Korean and asked if they’d seen a young American woman in the area. They shook their heads.
Jessica Tidwell had arrived in Itaewon just before the midnight-to-four curfew took effect.
“We’re not going to find her out here now,” Ernie said.
“Maybe not,” I answered. “If you were her, where would you go?”
Ernie thought about it. “To see Paco.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s what I thought to. So maybe Paco Bernal didn’t leave Itaewon after all. Maybe he’s been hiding here the last few days and maybe he found a way to get word to Jessica Tidwell.”
“And as soon as she had a chance, she flew the coop.”
“Right again.”
“So they’re together. And Paco found a hideout in or near Itaewon that we haven’t been able to snoop out. A lot of good that does us. We still don’t know where they are.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“What?” Ernie asked.
“Paco has some business to conduct, remember? With that thousand dollars.”
“Sure,” Ernie said. “he was going to buy some drugs in bulk, move them quickly, make a profit, and return the thousand dollars to Colonel Tidwell’s safe.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. The perfect plan, other than a few minor factors. He didn’t know that when Jessica stole the money she’d leave the safe unlocked and the door to her father’s den open just to piss off her mom. Only thing he hadn’t counted on, the dumb shit. But other than drugs, what else could he buy and make a quick profit? Had to be drugs.”
Paco could have bought expensive items at the PX-like imported cameras or stereo equipment-to sell at a profit. The problem was that all such items are recorded by 8th Army Data Processing and at the end of each G.I.’s tour you have to either produce the item or, more often, produce a receipt that it is being shipped back to the States in your hold baggage. Paco would want something untraceable. Therefore it had to be something illicit, like drugs.
“So if he were going to do that,” I said, “in Itaewon, who would he see?”
Ernie thought about it a moment. “Nobody deals drugs in the open in Itaewon. Not if we‘re talking something other than marijuana.”
In Korea, the penalty for dealing in hard drugs-heroin or cocaine-is death. And it’s strictly enforced. More than one culprit, foreign and Korean, had been hanged for the offense. The military government of Pak Chung-hee was trying, by force of will, to pull Korea out of poverty and they weren’t going to allow drug dealers to corrupt its youth and thereby hold the country back.
“So if Paco’d set up some sort of exchange,” I said, “it was probably a one shot deal with somebody who was willing to take a big chance. Who would that be?”
“Somebody desperate,” Ernie said.
“Which, in Itaewon, doesn’t narrow it down much.”
“No.”
“So when it comes to money, who knows everything that goes on in Itaewon?”
Ernie thought about it a moment. “Haggler Lee.” Then he smiled and said, “We ain’t there yet?”
An alley not much wider than the width of my shoulders led up a steep hill. We followed it and took a right and then a left and another left. No electric lights shone behind the ten-foot-high stone and brick walls that lined the narrow lane. Orienting ourselves by moonlight, we finally stopped and pounded on an ancient wood-plank door.
We kept pounding for ten minutes, taking turns when our knuckles grew raw. After another five minutes, the big door squeaked open.
An old woman wearing a traditional Korean dress bowed to us and motioned for us to follow her across the narrow courtyard. She shoved open a heavy wooden door that squeaked on rusty wheels and then closed it behind us. Ernie and I entered a vast, two-story-high warehouse. In the center of the warehouse, guttering like a fading ghost, flame flickered from a fat wax candle.
Haggler Lee sat cross-legged on a kang, a platform raised about two feet off the floor and covered with thickly layered oil paper. After wending our way around mountains of crated goods, Ernie and I took off our shoes, stepped up onto the platform, and sat across from Haggler Lee. Between us stood a foot-high round table with mother-of-pearl dragons inlaid in its black lacquer surface.
Haggler Lee smiled.
Two teeth poked out of red gums, both of them brown. Haggler Lee had been a youngish-looking man, probably in his mid to late forties, but lately he’d been sick. In the flickering candlelight, his skin looked yellow, shading toward orange. Nobody knew exactly what disease he was suffering from but my guess was something endemic to Korea, like hepatitis.
“Paco Bernal,” Haggler Lee said, without any hint of weariness in his voice. “He’s a good boy.”
I did my best not to show surprise. But when I thought about it, I shouldn’t have been startled that Haggler Lee already knew why we were here. People watch everything G.I. s do in Itaewon, especially two G.I. s who happen to be agents for 8th Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Through his black-market business, Haggler Lee would have dealings with business girls and cocktail waitresses and bartenders and just about everyone else who keeps the nightclub district of Itaewon humming. What else did Haggler Lee know? Did he know about Colonel Tidwell and Jessica? I’d soon find out.
“Does Paco work for you?” Ernie asked.
“He run errand sometimes.”
“What kind of errands?”
“On compound.” Haggler Lee shrugged his narrow shoulders. The hand-stitched white cranes embroidered onto his silk tunic made a rustling sound, as if flapping feathered wings. “Deliveries,” Lee said.
“Of dope?”
The flushed skin of Haggler Lee’s face grimaced in pain. “Not dope. Only natural product.”
“Like marijuana?”
“What grows from the earth no can hurt body.”
Also, it can’t get you in trouble with the Korean National Police. The Korean authorities are much more tolerant about mildly hallucinogenic plants that grow from the soil. Korea is an ancient agricultural country. Farmers need to supplement their income between harvests. If G.I. s want to smoke some weed, what harm could it do?
I pushed the candle-holder forward, trying to throw more light on Haggler Lee’s face. “Did Paco make a big buy recently?” I asked. “Like a thousand bucks?”
Haggler Lee looked pained again, as if his small stomach were churning razor blades.
“Paco has some problems,” Haggler Lee replied.
That was the understatement of the week.
“What kind of problems?”
“Like bad people hear about thousand dollars stolen on compound,” Lee said. “Same bad people also hear that good boy, Paco, he the one stole thousand dollars.”
“So Paco’s money is gone,” I said, “stolen by hoodlums. And he never had a chance to make the deal he was going to make.”
Haggler Lee splayed his bony hands. “So sad story.”
“Yes,” I answered. “So sad story.”
“Where is Paco now?” Ernie asked.
“He run away. With that American girl. She come to get him tonight. She have some more money so Paco can hide.”
“Where’d they go?”
Haggler Lee breathed deeply and then let the air out slowly between clenched teeth, a traditional sign of painful indecision. When he didn’t answer, Ernie rapped his knuckles on the inlaid mother-of-pearl table
.
“What do you want, Lee?” he asked.
Haggler Lee’s eyes shone. “Who on black-market detail now?”
“Burrows and Slabem,” Ernie answered.
Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem, our fellow agents at 8th Army CID, not friends of ours.
“Can you make sure,” Haggler Lee asked, “that they no visit me tomorrow?”
Although they had no direct jurisdiction over Haggler Lee, Agents Burrows and Slabem routinely showed up to scare G.I. s away and disrupt Lee’s black-market operation, costing him money. Ernie and I seldom did. He was too valuable a source of information.
“What time?” Ernie asked.
“Noontime until four o’clock.”
“We’ll make something up,” Ernie said. “Our case is top priority. We’ll tell the first sergeant we need their help to research something.”
Lee nodded in agreement. “Good. Then I tell you where Paco and colonel’s daughter go.” He clawed his long fingernails on the edge of the small table. “But you no like.”
“We like, no like. No make difference,” Ernie said. He was beginning to sound like a Korean himself.
“Paco Bernal go someplace hide. Nobody know where. But before he go, colonel’s daughter say goodbye to Paco. Say she go back to American compound. But she no go compound. She go Golden Dragon Travel Agency.”
“To buy tickets to leave the country?” I asked.
“No.” Lee said. “To earn one thousand dollars. To give back to her father. To get Paco out of trouble.”
Ernie’s eyes widened. “How in the hell is she going to make a thousand bucks at a travel agency?”
Lee waited for us to figure it out. I already had. A few seconds later, so did Ernie.
“Japanese tourists,” he said.
Lee nodded. The pain in his stomach must’ve hurt something fierce. His wrinkled face twisted in anguish.
“Not good,” Lee said. “Eighth Army, any honcho, my friend. They loose face, Haggler Lee loose face.”
I believed he meant it. Haggler Lee had grown rich off of the 8th United States Army and anything that cut them down a notch, cut him down a notch too.
My gut wasn’t feeling too good at this news. If something awful happened to Jessica Tidwell, if she wasn’t saved from hurting herself, the lowest-ranking enlisted men standing near the disaster would be blamed. In this case, that would be myself and Agent Ernie Bascom.
I asked Haggler Lee about Two Bellies. He recoiled at the name and claimed he knew nothing about her murder. Ernie started to ask follow-up questions but within seconds the maid came back in and the candle was snuffed out. By the light of a flashlight, we were ushered out of the warehouse.
We could’ve raised hell, tried to force more information out of him, but I knew from experience that Haggler Lee, despite his frail appearance, couldn’t be intimidated. But if you remained on his good side, and played the game the way he expected it to be played, he’d parcel out information the same way he parceled out money: one coin at a time.
With nothing more to go on, Ernie and I returned to the MP Station on Yongsan Compound and reported that, so far, we’d been unable to find Jessica Tidwell. I did my best to catch a couple of hours sleep before reveille.
Shortly after the morning bugle sounded, Ernie and I were up, hunched over our favorite table at the 8th Army snack bar, slurping on bitter coffee and munching bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. The big question we faced was whether or not to report what we’d learned from Haggler Lee up the chain of command. Plenty of waste had already hit the fan but now even more of that waste was liable to splatter back on us.
“Before I report anything,” I said, “we should talk to Jesssica’s mom.”
“Her mom?” Ernie said. “What about the colonel?”
“First, we start with his wife,” I said. “The real power in 8th Army.”
“No way,” Ernie replied. “Not yet. She’ll have a conniption fit and be all over us like a she-cat.”
Ernie was right. Once Mrs. Tidwell knew what her daughter might be facing, she’d demand that all the resources of 8th Army be diverted to save her precious offspring. The first sergeant, or more likely the provost marshal, would be directing our every move. In some ways, that would get us off the hook. If something went wrong-and it most likely would-the blame would be shared. But Ernie just thought of solving things and for him the direct way was the best way.
But there was one other thing Mrs. Tidwell might be able to do for us. So far, Ernie and I were still stripped of our investigative powers. If Mrs. Tidwell demanded that we be fully reinstated, it would probably happen. Then, in addition to searching for the precious Jessica Tidwell, Ernie and I would be in a better position to investigate the death of Mori Di and, just as importantly, the recent brutal murder of Two Bellies.
“We need to get our butts out to this Golden Dragon Travel Agency,” Ernie said. “Find Jessica, and drag her ass home.”
Something told me it wouldn’t be that easy. Still, it was worth a try.
After finishing our sumptuous 8th Army repast, we walked up the hill to the CID Admin Office where I used the Korean phone book to look up the number and address of the Golden Dragon Travel Agency. I called but there was no answer. At this time of the morning, it figured. Travel agencies in Korea are full service affairs-not just shops that sell airplane tickets-and they do most of their business late in the day and especially at night. The Golden Dragon Travel Agency might not even open its doors until noon. Still, it wouldn’t do for Ernie and me to sit around the office waiting to be harangued by questions and giving every little Napoleon a chance to instruct us as to what action to take.
I left a note for Staff Sergeant Riley telling him that Ernie and I would be in Itaewon, searching for Jessica Tidwell.
We took some time gassing up Ernie’s jeep and having some maintenance done on it, so it was almost noon by the time we found the right neighborhood. Ernie stood in front of an open-fronted store that sold Korean fast-food items: packaged dried noodles, discs of puffed rice, canned guava juice, and the corpses of dried cuttlefish nailed to a wooden rafter. Ernie had loaded up on two double packs of ginseng gum and offered me a stick. For once I took one, unwrapped it, and stuck it in my mouth. The stuff tasted bitter, like a powder of dried aspirin, but was sweetened by some sort of sugary mint flavor. All in all, nauseating. But “good for the metabolism” as Ernie was fond of saying.
Why he felt he needed something to fire up his metabolism, I never did figure out.
He said, “What’s the address of that Golden Dragon Travel Agency?”
“One-two-five dong, three-six-four ho, in Hannam-dong,” I replied. “That’s it across the street.”
Ernie wasn’t able to read the sign but he was able to make out the sinuous dragon painted gold and red.
“We ain’t there yet?”
We crossed the street, ducked through the open door, and breezed past the secretary. At the back office we pushed open the door. A plaque in front of his desk said his name was Kim. When Ernie pulled his. 45 and shoved the barrel up into Mr. Kim’s nostril, the middle-aged travel agent couldn’t talk fast enough.
Unfolded on his desk was a huge album featuring wallet-sized snapshots of dozens of Korean women. His sales portfolio. Japanese businessmen arrived in country in organized junkets, usually paid for by the company they worked for. Before they left their home country, each participant had already picked out a Korean girl to act as his “hostess” upon arrival.
I didn’t see Jessica’s photo but when I mentioned her name he knew who she was quick enough.
“She go with Mr. Fukushima.”
“Fuku-whatta?” Ernie asked.
“Ondo Fukushima. Very powerful man.”
“How powerful?” I asked.
The manager of the Golden Dragon Travel Agency stared into the barrel of Ernie’s. 45 and swallowed. “Yakuza,” he said.
The Japanese mafia.
“What hotel is h
e staying at?”
“Not there yet. He arrive airport in Pusan one hour ago. Has many business meetings in many places: Kuangju, Taegu, Taejon. I don’t know where.”
Ernie punched him. The travel agent howled in pain. I checked to make sure that his secretary hadn’t reached for the telephone. She hadn’t. She sat at her desk, hands flat on the lacquered wooden desk in front of her, shaking like a frightened rabbit. I felt bad about this treatment, but we had no choice but to scare the hell out of them. If I’d asked Mr. Kim questions without using intimidation, he would’ve either told me to take a hike or stalled and demanded money. Neither of which I had time for. Would he turn us in to the Korean National Police for using threats and intimidation? Probably not. Because that’s what the KNPs use themselves. In Korea, it’s an unofficial-but accepted-law-enforcement technique. I assuaged my guilt by reminding myself that many of the women in Mr. Kim’s portfolio-the lost young faces staring out at me-were forced into prostitution by threats and intimidation. This was a nice office, and Mr. Kim wore a clean pressed suit, but from wall to wall the place stank.
“I don’t know where Mr. Fukushima go,” Kim said. “Yakuza don’t write down… how you say?”
“Itinerary,” I told him.
He nodded. “Yes. Itinerary.”
“Is Jessica with him now?”
“Not yet. His driver pick her up this morning, take her someplace south. She will greet Mr. Fukushima tomorrow morning and stay with him during all meetings. Tomorrow night, maybe late, they come back Seoul.”
That was unusual. Usually the Japanese sex tourists hide their girls in their hotel rooms. Sometimes they take them to the casinos or the nightclubs, but that’s about it. Never to official business meetings.
Kim responded to my questioning look. “Fukushima get good face,” he said. “He want everybody see American girl. Daughter of G.I. honcho. He show her to everybody.”
“How much is he paying her?” I asked.
“One thousand dollars. For whole weekend.”
“What does she have to do?”
Kim’s eyes widened. “What you mean?”
“What service does she have to perform for the thousand dollars?”